Busy Bee

And I thought I'd have a lot of free time after I resigned from my fulltime job. Two weeks since I've become unemployed and my to-do list seems to be getting longer. Much, much longer. And now it's September!

My last day at work was a Saturday. I had a good rest the next couple of days, feeling I deserved to at least sleep two full days before I dove into my writing commitments. So after waking up from the two-day hibernation period, the next couple of days were spent working on the Electronic Evidence module. Emer informed me that my first paycheck was waiting for me at the office and my conscience dictated that I first work on an article or two before I brave the EDSA traffic and drag myself to UP for my sweet, sweet paycheck. So I did. I have gazillions of articles left to write but at least I've already started. There is an old Chinese proverb that goes, "好的开始就是成功的一半。(A good beginning is midway to success.)" It was storming the rest of the week so I had a great excuse for being cooped up at home, cleaning the dogs' cages in the afternoons (we wouldn't want the rainwater to go to waste, would we?) and working on the e-evidence at night.

And then I got a call from a friend looking for a translator for a Taiwanese businessman for an exhibit at the World Trade Center. Naturally, I couldn't pass up an offer of a few thousands for four days of interpreting work. Never mind that I was still far from fluent in both Mandarin and Fukien. The plan was do the translating job in the morning, write the e-evidence article at night. That, of course, did not happen. I was too exhausted by the time I got home each night that all I could do was get to bed and drift off to dreamland. I am now way behind schedule on my carefully laid out timeplan for the writing assignments. (Emer, I hope you're not reading this.) But the job was done, we sold our products, I got paid. All these after I lost my phone, which happened on my very first day on the job.

So I spent the entire week being ex-communicado, my world revolving in and around the World Trade Center with its P60-hotdog and P40-Coke in can. I had no time and energy to go scouting for new phones and besides, I'd get paid at the end of the week. The universe had already decided that the money I would earn would go to buying a phone, so it seemed.

I got home on Friday with the house all locked up and dark. It turned out that Akoh was rushed to the hospital due to dizziness. Naturally I was not informed because I did not have a phone. It was like being back in the old days when you get second-hand information all because there was no way of directly contacting you.

I went directly to the Chinese General Hospital after my last day at work to relieve Nuna from her post of bantay and stayed overnight until Akoh was discharged noon of the next day. I finally had time to get myself a new SIM but without a phone, I was still pretty much out of touch with the rest of the world.

I finally got a new (okay, a second-hand) phone last Wednesday and I'm still exploring all its mysterious features. It's a 3G! Although I haven't used that yet. I wonder whom I could use it for. Besides, I will have to make sure that I combed my hair at least before starting a phone conversation if I were to use that feature. But I've already transferred songs to it! Except I don't have an earphone yet so I pretty much have to share the music to everyone within hearing distance, which by the way, Iel doesn't mind at all. That kid's world is ruled by music and dance.

Promptly after I got my phone, my body realized that I'd run out of urgent things to do and slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y, started playing with a harmless cold. A simple cold, of course, never kills anyone so I went to the SSS office with Akoh on Thursday to process some papers for her Philhealth benefits. By lunch, it wasn't my cold that stopped us from going straight to the hospital to complete the day's mission but a bad case of dysmenorrhea. We went back home and saved the hospital trip for another day. The dysmenorrhea took up most of my world those couple of days that I hardly noticed my worsening cold until two days after when I was no longer in pain from my monthly torture.

So I now sniffle in self-pity. I have the voice of a frog while my body aches all over and is in bad need of a really good massage.

Oh! And I have to go to Makati tomorrow to meet with my old boss (who might become my future boss again. But more on that in an altogether different blog entry). I think what I need to do now is lie down and sleep.